Don't Scatter Poison - Let Cats Do The Job

OPINION - MUDDY WATERS

The plague of mice that is tormenting west Orange County residents living near Lake Apopka is just nibbling at the fringes of Lake County.

It could be only a matter of time before the little rodents invade.

Mice don't particularly alarm me in general. The Black Death aside - that was a long time ago - mice are about as harmless as squirrels, but anything can be a nuisance in large numbers.

Still, the knee-jerk reaction to counter the mice with poison bothers me. Our Orange County brethren are planning on dumping some 11 tons of Quintox around the lake to stop the rodent advance.

That's a lot of poison, even if officials say it is ``relatively'' safe.

It seems to me that a lot of Lake Apopka's woes can be traced back to the misuse of poisons. The muck farmers laced their farmlands with pesticides to keep bugs off their carrots and corn, the poison slowly drained into the lake, and the lake slowly died.

When the St. Johns River Water Management District bought out the farmlands and reflooded the fields, thousands of birds turned up dead.

The whole ecology of the lake has become so twisted that scientists don't really know what's going on there.

Now there's an army of mice on the loose - possibly because there are fewer predators to keep their population in check - and all anyone can think to do is blanket the area with more pesticides.

That's not, I think, a very good plan.

Years ago I had a small mouse problem - the little bugger climbed in the house though the cable television line. A big cat proved to be the common-sense solution for me.

Mousetraps can be cruel and nasty, and poisons do more damage environmentally than the mice themselves.

Cats are extremely efficient and environmentally safe. Just ask the Cat Protection Society in Sorrento. We have tons more cats than we know what to do with - they're just in the wrong place.

The cat protection people are not too thrilled at the idea of using felines to curb the mice infestation because of the concern that people won't want the cats after the immediate mouse problem is over.

That's certainly a legitimate worry, but it doesn't change the fact that what the folks around Lake Apopka need are a few good mousers rather than another pile of poison.

When I was a kid, we had a cat that was an extremely good mouser. On our back porch every morning, without fail, she would leave a trophy. Usually it was freshly, although somewhat gruesomely, filleted.

Mice were her specialty, and we had a field in the back that was full of them.

As predators on land, felines are unsurpassed. Their effectiveness in controlling vermin is what led wild cats to be domesticated in the first place.

The domestic cat we know today evolved from an African wild cat, felis libyca. They are carnivores with highly developed senses, sharp teeth, claws and a lot of patience.

They have a particular affinity for rodents and other small mammals that live in burrows that they can stake out and pounce when their prey emerges.

The average meal for a single cat is the equivalent of about five mice, so they can dispose of a lot of rodents.

Of course, mice face other predators, too - foxes, weasels, owls, snakes and coyotes - but I can't really see importing them to Lake Apopka.

Mice can run up to seven miles an hour and can jump seven times their own length. That's good, but not good enough to save them from your average house cat.

Of course, if officials really get serious about the mouse problem, they'll start importing some feral black-footed cats.

Considered the smallest species of cat, the black-footed cat averages less than four pounds at maturity. They thrive in Africa, are nocturnal, and have a more voracious appetite than most larger cats.

Mice are believed to be their target, and because of their small size, they may even live in abandoned burrows.

Anything is better than polluting Lake Apopka with more poisons, even if they are supposed to be ``relatively'' safe.